Facing an abundance of staff absences due to COVID-19, Bonneville Joint School District 93 is closing schools Friday.
The District 93 school board met Wednesday for a work session to discuss the district’s active COVID-19 cases. Superintendent Scott Woolstenhulme recommended schools close on Friday since COVID-19 cases are still at unprecedented high levels. The district also closed schools Jan. 14, due to staff absences.
“This week is looking just like the last two weeks have through today as far as the number of absences we have,” Woolstenhulme said.
The weekly average of new cases was 247.6 on Wednesday, according to the district’s COVID-19 dashboard. Case counts are no longer rising, but they have plateaued at high levels, Woolstenhulme said.
On Jan. 20, board members chose not to have an emergency closure of schools the following Friday, as district officials felt prepared to cover staff absences. That situation changed overnight, Woolstenhulme said.
“The number of absences increased by another 50 percent,” Woolstenhulme said. “If I would’ve known that was how Friday was going to look, I would’ve made a different recommendation to the board on Thursday night.”
Closing school on Friday is necessary because it’s the hardest day of the week to find substitute teachers who can fill in, Woolstenhulme said. Following the closure this Friday, the district will have used all its hours the state allows to close schools due to emergencies. Any emergency-related closure for the rest of the school year will have to be accompanied by an online learning option for high school students or the district petitioning the state, Woolstenhulme said.
Board member Carissa Coats said she feels the district is much better prepared to transition to online learning than it was last year.
“As a parent, I’m a lot less scared for my kids to come home and learn than I was last year when they came home and never went back,” Coats said.
Douglas McLaren, Thunder Ridge High School principal, said during the meeting that he felt his school should’ve closed last week and supported closing schools on Friday.
Heath Jackson, the district’s executive director of Planning and Personnel, told board members he’s noticed a pattern every day this week where there has been somewhere between a 30% to 50% increase of staff absences from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. the following day.
"Last Friday (was the highest increase of that week) but we’re seeing that this week as well,” Jackson said.
Woolstenhulme said he expects case numbers to drop within the next two weeks, based off data from the rest of the country.